Where there's a Will, there's a distortion

Every election cycle, each of which is more wretchedly awash in special-interest bribery than the last, the astringent mind of George Will invokes some laughably loose comparison between political spending and cultural fun money. In the current go-around, as the Republic drowns in the free-flowing toxins of what he calls the Supreme Court's "splendid" Citizens United ruling, Mr. Will's comparison is: 

This year, the presidential campaigns combined may spend almost $2 billion, which is almost as much as Americans will, in a few weeks, spend on Easter candy.

OK. At least that rots only our teeth. But why stop at that little frivolity? I mean, how much will we spend on SpongeBob SquarePants underwear? Does anyone care, except, indubitably, the makers of SpongeBob underwear? Does that spending in any way frame, fix, or place in perspective what we should spend on presidential campaigns?

And who are "we"? I'll take Will's word for it that we as a nation will debit ourselves to the tune of $2 billion on Easter candy, but the collective "we" will scarcely spend $2 billion on the presidential campaigns -- and that incomparability, Will prefers to neglect. If I spend $5 on Easter candy, who cares? Indeed, if my neighbor spends $5,000 on Easter candy, this, too, neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg, as Jefferson said of another context. Yet if I contribute -- i.e., can only afford to contribute -- $5 apiece to my city council candidates of choice, whereas my neighbor can afford $5,000 contributions to my candidates' hyperlibertarian opponents, well, after the election I might awake one morning to the sight of that 50-foot SpongeBob monument on my neighbor's front lawn, the one he has yearned to erect for years, but couldn't because of those dad-blamed government-zoning ordinances.

What's more, if the two major presidential campaigns were publicly financed at $1 billion each, would Will object that this is a mere trifle? Somehow I suspect that Mr. Will would suddenly discover that $2 billion of that sort of political financing is a Gingrichian grotesquery.

Comments

[Robert Lipscomb]

I agree with your analysis and comments. What distresses me is that the 99% (sorry) miss an opportunity by not pooling their resources. If say 20 million progressives of moderate means set up a $10/month donation to (to be discussed later), That is $200 million/month or $2.4 billion per year. I continue to be amazed that neither party has organized an effort to accomplish this. Hell's bells, even PBS and NPR can do this.

This is doable.